Television's "Law & Order" franchise rips its plots from the headlines. Serious stuff. I find the local police logs just as entertaining and just as strange.

• Sometimes, a drunk driver gives himself away.

—A 23-year-old Lancaster man was charged with DUI by Manheim Township police after he was stopped by officers who saw him driving on a flat tire.

—An off-duty Quarryville police officer reported to East Lampeter police that a horse and buggy was moving slowly down a road, straddling the line. The driver, who had passed out or dozed off, was arrested for DUI.

• They say that criminals return to the scenes of their crimes. I don't know about other kinds of crooks, but shoplifters here seem to go back for more.

—Ephrata police recently reported that 10 minutes after they released a New Holland woman for shoplifting, she went back to the same store and shoplifted again.

—An East Petersburg man, 32, shoplifted from a Fruitville Pike store and got away with it, or so he must have thought. He returned a few months later and tried it again only to be recognized and arrested.

—In Manheim Township, a man, 41, was charged with shoplifting at a Lititz Pike store at 9 a.m. At 10 p.m., he was cited for shoplifting at another store down the block. The arrests were made by the same police officer.

• Channeling Bruce Lee?

—A man, 36, having trouble working an ATM in a supermarket, took out his frustration by punching and breaking the screen. Witnesses got his license plate number and the Lancaster man was arrested.

• Finders are not keepers.

—A Pequea woman, 25, was charged with one count of "theft of property lost and mislaid" after she picked up a Manheim Township man's wedding ring after it slipped off his finger while he was checking out at a store.

The man didn't realize he was missing the $1,300 ring until he got to the parking lot. A clerk told him a woman had picked it up. Doing some detective work of his own, the man found his ring in a Lancaster pawn shop where it had been sold, allegedly by the woman, for $52.

• Some incidents don't fit a category.

—In New Holland, a man being charged with robbery and conspiracy involving the beating of a man decided to scratch his name in the paint on a bench inside the holding cell at the police station. That got him charged with institutional vandalism, as well.

—West Earl Township police reported that a door was stolen from a 1996 Land Rover Discovery while it was parked on a used-car lot.

—An Allentown woman, 45, was charged with open lewdness after Manheim Township police were told that she got out of her vehicle and urinated in the open at Route 501 and York Road. On a Friday. At 11:04 a.m.

• Houses of worship aren't immune to visits from police.

—East Lampeter police were called when an intoxicated man rang the door bell of a home and tried to open the door. Police found him sleeping it off in the vestibule of a nearby church.

—No question that times are tough. The "poor box" was stolen from an East Earl Township church.

—In Manheim Township, police charged a man, 31, with harassment after he poked and bumped another man during an argument.

The incident happened on a Sunday.

At a church.

Birthday girl
Happy birthday to daughter Abigail, who turns 14 late on New Year's Eve.

And to all, a happy New Year. Thanks for reading.